1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to cohered fasteners arranged in parallel with each other and in shank form each having a penerating point at one end thereof and a head at the other end thereof, as well as to oblique linked fasteners disposed in parallel with each other and successively displaced such that the axial positions thereof take a stepped form. This invention also relates to a method and apparatus for manufacture of such fasteners.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the past, a plastic adhesive has been employed to adhere fasteners such as a plurality of nails to hold the shanks parallel in a plane. A fastener driving tool or the like is loaded with the cohered fasteners as they are, in stacked strip form. In use, the tool separates the nails from the strip as each nail is driven by a driver.
The driver is thus required to have the secondary capability of cutting the plastic adhesive coating layer as well as the ability to drive the nails. The tool is disadvantageous in that its dimensions have to be made relatively large since the adhesive coating layer is generally rigid and has a great honding force thereby requiring a considerable force to accomplish the cutting.
The surface of the adhesive coating layer when hardened may typically remain sticky, so that the cohered fasteners adhere to each other during production or when packaged which is disadvantageous in that the fasteners are prevented from being taken out of a package or an apparatus.
A prior art fastener driving tool for linked fasteners has been well known in which the magazine is loaded with nails arranged in a strip and in which the nails positioned at the forward end are successively separated from the strip as each nail is driven. The conventional fastener driving tool is provided with a magazine which extends rearwardly from the tool nose such that nails are successively fed forward to the nose which incorporates a driver and serves to drive the nails. The elongated magazine is mounted to horizontally extend rearwardly from the nose which is disposed perpendicular to the main body of the tool. For this reason, this tool uses nails disposed in a strip in such a manner that the shanks thereof are parallel and flush with each other in the same axial direction and at the same level.
A proposal has been made to provide a fastener driving tool which is designed such that the nose can be fully extended without interfering with the other magazine components and the like which are disposed peripherally of the nose. Such a tool could be used to drive a nail in tight places such as corners and the like of an item of woodwork. To this end, the so-called "hip-up" type magazine has been proposed wherein the base of the magazine is inclined contiguous to the nose in the upward direction. The cohered fasteners to be used in such a magazine are obliquely held together as a whole in such a manner that the shanks thereof are gradually staggered in a stepped fashion. As a result, the head and penerating point of each of the nails are connected in a vertically staggered relation to the adjacent ones in the axial direction so that a series of these obliquely cohered fasteners form an extremely complicated overall configuration. Conventionally, to manufacture such obliquely cohered fasteners, a plurality of individually formed or molded fasteners are disposed in parallel with each other in a successively staggered fashion and then adhered to each other. This greatly complicates production and the apparatus therefor.